How a Fringe Conspiracy Theory Made Its Way to Sean Hannity's Broadcast

In a new op-ed for the Washington Post, Mary and Joel Rich implore readers to stop politicizing their son Seth's death. "Imagine that every single day, with every phone call you hope that it's the police, calling to tell you that there has been a break in the case," they wrote. "Imagine that instead, every call that comes in is a reporter asking what you think of a series of lies or conspiracies about the death."

Given the unsolved mystery of Rich's murder, and the nature of conspiracy theories, it's difficult to untangle what happened to the 27-year-old and why prominent figures like Sean Hannity are so obsessed with him. What follows is a look at the timeline of how they got there.

July 10, 2016: Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich is fatally shot while walking home from a bar in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

July 22, 2016: Wikileaks publishes nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee, the most inflammatory of which suggest that the DNC is conspiring to suppress the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in favor of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

July 24, 2016: The chairwoman of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigns from her post.

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July 24, 2016: Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook appears on CNN to allege that Russian hackers leaked the DNC emails in order to help the campaign of her opponent, Donald Trump.

August 9, 2016: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appears on the Dutch television news show Nieuwsuur and implies that Rich was their source behind the DNC leak.

August 9, 2016: Wikileaks announces a $20,000 reward for any information about Rich's murder. Conspiracy theories bubble up on sites like 4chan and Reddit suggesting that the DNC killed Rich.

September 16, 2016: Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman offers an additional $100,000 reward for information about Rich's murder. "I'm not here to expound on anything even remotely conspiratorial," he says. "You certainly can't rule out any theories, or at least you shouldn't." Rich's parents welcome any assistance with the case but, "That said, we want to be clear that some have attempted to politicize Seth's murder and forward bizarre conspiracy theories," they say through a spokesperson. "We hope that everyone remains singularly focused on solving this case and bringing Seth's murderer to justice."

Metropolitan Police Department

March 1, 2017: Burkman stops by Fox News with new "evidence" about the Rich case. "It's my job to bring closure to the family," he explains. "I was approached by a guy who styles himself as a former U.S. intel officer ... what he said is basically this: that Seth discovered that the Russians had been hacking and therefore the Russian government did away with Seth."

March 19, 2017: Rich's brother Aaron starts a GoFundMe page with a goal of $200,000. The money will be used to hire "investigative, forensic and analytical services" in order to solve his murder.

May 15, 2017: The Fox News affiliate in D.C. hosts Rod Wheeler, a private detective who claims there is "absolutely" a "confirmed" connection between Rich and Wikileaks. He claims to have a source at the FBI, and says the secret lies on Rich's laptop. "The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming. They haven't been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both," he says.

May 16, 2017: Fox News runs a story on its website saying that Rich sent over 44,000 internal DNC emails to Wikileaks before he was killed.

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May 16, 2017: The Metropolitan Police Department tells Fox's D.C. affiliate that Wheeler's claim of the DNC asking them to stand down on Rich's murder investigation is "absolutely false" and "preposterous."

May 17, 2017: Wheeler walks back his statements and tells the Fox D.C. affiliate that they were a "miscommunication." The Rich family responds, "The family has relayed their deep disappointment with Rod Wheeler's conduct over the last 48 hours, and is exploring legal avenues..."

May 23, 2017: Fox News issues a formal retraction of the Wheeler story. "The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed."

May 23, 2017: Fox News host Sean Hannity promises to keep investigating Rich's murder. "I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com, I retracted nothing," he says. "For all of you in the media, I'm not going to stop doing my job and asking questions, because I know the lies you're telling, and the conspiracies you've spun, with no evidence, to destroy a president in conjunction with the deep state."

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May 23, 2017: The left-wing group MediaMatters continues its war on Hannity by publishing a list of his advertisers and encouraging followers to boycott them. "Sean Hannity is a professional propagandist for President Donald Trump, as well as a bigot, a sexist, and a conspiracy theorist," they explain of their crusade to get him removed from Fox News.

May 23, 2017: Rich's parents beg the conspiracy theorists to cease their efforts. "The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable," they write. "With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth's murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth's memory is torn away from us."

May 24, 2017: Several companiesthat advertise onHannity pull their ads from the show, according to BuzzFeed, including Cars.com, mattress and pillow maker Casper, video doorbell company Ring, and Peloton, which makes exercise bikes. Hannity also tweets that he was taking a couple days off, part of his annual extended Memorial Day vacation. But the timing draws comparisons to Bill O'Reilly, who went on what he described as a previously scheduled trip to Italy just as advertisers were fleeing his show. O'Reilly was fired from Fox News during that vacation.

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